2) Is it true that Prof. Pantelei Antonovich
Shchurkevich is being arrested for the fifth time, and Prof. Boris
Yevdokimovich Vorobyov, for the third?

3) What is the reason for the arrests, and why is arrest
used as the measure of suppression—after all, they will
not run away?

4) Do the All-Russia Extraordinary Commission, the
Gubernia Chekas or any other Chekas issue warrants not for
personal arrests, but for “discretionary” arrests, and if
they do then specify to which personnel (degree of
responsibility, post, political maturity)?

Notes

[1]The document was apparently written in connection with
P. S. Osadchy’s report. On the list of those arrested on the night
of May 27, 1921, in which the names of P. A. Shchurkevich and
B. Y. Vorobyov were underlined, Lenin made a number of
remarks: “Osadchy personally knows both the underlined”; “Same
as I am”; “Perhaps they could be placed only under house arrest?
Couldn’t other measures of suppression be applied? After all,
they are not running away”, etc.

At the same time, Lenin wrote the following note: “1) In the
recent period warrants have been issued for ‘arrest at discretion’.
2) Personal warrants are desirable.”

On June 3, the Chairman of the Petrograd Gubernia Cheka
informed I. S. Unschlicht that all the persons mentioned in
Lenin’s telegram had been released; the arrests in Petrograd were
carried out among former members of the Cadet Party, because
some of them had taken part in a plot uncovered in Petrograd;
persons without compromising material were released. Those
detained were kept under arrest from 12 hours to 36 hours (Central
Party Archives of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the
C.P.S.U. Central Committee).